One Way Love
by LittleMissSnark
Summary: Perception. It's all about Perception. The way you see yourself, the way you see other people, and the way you see love. NS


Disclaimer: Nope. Don't own. Welcome to my life.

Greetings and Salutations, all!

Well, this is my first chapter story in a while. It's called **One Way Love**, and I hope you like it! It's an angst story only without the angst.

Read and Enjoy! Oh, and don't forget to click that little button in the lower left and give me Feedback!

* * *

Chapter 1- Her Honey Voice

"Why do you always do that?"

Silence ceased as her honey voice hit his ears and his auditory sensors began to ring. They always rang when her husky tone sneaked its way inside of his brain, leaving him smiling. He looked out onto the road and continued to drive, dreamily pondering of her until she snapped him out of his reverie, again pressing the question.

"Nick? Did you hear me?"

"Yeah, I did, Sara. What do I always do?" He responded, seizing the opportunity to quickly glance at his attractive passenger.

"Come on, Nick," She began, smirking at him, preparing him for the streak of dry sarcasm that flowed with her keen observations, "That's the third gas station we've passed, and the third gas station attendant you've waved at. Do you always acknowledge every passerby on the way to a crime scene?"

"Well," Nick shrugged, looking out at the dusty road they'd been on for what seemed like forever, "Back when I was a kid, my father would wave at every person he saw on the way back to the ranch, and I guess I just picked it up myself."

Nick smiled at her, and she rolled her eyes to look away and stare out at the barren scenery around them. They'd each pulled a triple, and this early rollout 50 miles outside of Vegas in the desert secured they'd be enjoying yet another shift out in the field. Nick was exhausted, but he couldn't help notice that Sara looked unfazed, if a little bit disheveled. Her hair had become wavy, no doubt from the small naps she took as she nestled into the burrow of her arms while waiting for lab results, and her clothes were wrinkled from storage in the locker room for this exact sort of situation.

She'd also become more laid back than at the beginning of their first shift, pushing the passenger's seat in Nick's Denali halfway back and resting her bare feet on his dashboard. Nick assumed this was Sara's inner free spirit coming out to play, but he couldn't blame her. Summer in the lab was still as fierce and intense as ever, but the CSIs always tried to tone it down from the usual forcefulness that took them over in the colder months.

Nick couldn't help but spy Sara tucking an errant piece of her unruly hair behind her ear from out of the corner of his eye. His insides twisted at the simple gesture, and he could feel redness creeping up into his face in threadlike spindles. Silently, he thanked God for summertime so he could pass off his blushing as a reaction to the hot sun.

He'd been secretly in love with Sara for years, but he'd done everything he could to keep it a secret. He didn't want Sara to find out, because he knew her too well. She was Grissom's. Or, she could be Grissom's; he wasn't entirely sure what the situation was. All he knew was that his love could only be unrequited, because she was waiting for their boss to come around. Nick had always blown off their flirtatious interludes as ways for her to decompress, and he had never thought more of the things she did when she was around him. He let out a deep breath, as he came to the conclusion once again that they were just good friends.

"Dear Lord," Sara said as she reached over the console in Nick's Denali to reach the air conditioning dials, turning them up higher and cooler, "It is hot as hell out here."

"Well," Nick started in wryly, ready to tease his coworker, " We would be both enjoying a round of pancakes right now and a good day's sleep if Ecklie didn't hate you so much."

"You're right, Nick, I mean, what is up with him? We had a fight two years ago and he's sending us out to work a case knowing full well we've been at the lab for almost 48 hours straight?"

"Not entirely," Nick refuted, "He's just making us come out to the middle of nowhere to collect evidence. He's giving this case to his people after we get back."

"You're serious?" Sara questioned as she sat straight up in her seat, crossing her long legs under her body, "So he's just using us as his chore monkeys?"

Though he felt bad about it, Nick loved it when Sara got opinionated. He found her ability to show her strength unbelievably sexy, as long as it didn't hurt anyone. Since he knew Sara wasn't going to risk losing her job by firing her mouth off about it and he didn't give a damn about Ecklie in the first place, he decided he'd humor her.

"It's ridiculous," He said as he stared out into the dusty desert road, "He said he didn't want you or me to get more overtime than we've already accumulated in the past three shifts."

"You're damn right it's ridiculous. I can't believe the nerve he has, taking us for granted…." Sara started, and Nick prepared for her to express her opinion. In a lot of ways, Sara was a juggernaut: When she gets started on **anything**, she won't let up until it's finished. Especially when it came to work, thus spawning her continuous max-out on overtime and the feeling throughout the entire staff that secretly their own Ms. Sidle was living in the broom closet by the DNA room to be close to her work.

Nick admired her for it, _But, _he thought, _It were up to me, I'd find a way to get her away…._He smiled and inwardly chastised himself for not listening to Sara and romping in the gutter of his mind. Luckily he caught her at the tail end of her Ecklie-induced speech.

"…If he really wanted his day shift to work the case, he should've had them work the case from the beginning. Where are we, anyway?" Sara, spent from her round on the soapbox, leaned back into her seat and once again put her feet up on the dash as Nick furrowed his brow to approximate their current location.

"Well, that last sign said Overton was 40 miles away, and the scene is supposed to be about 15 miles outside of there, so…I'm guessing about 20 minutes?"

"We're going to die in this car then," Sara stated with authority, causing Nick to let out a low chuckle.

"Not true, check it out," Nick responded as he pointed to the car's stereo, "I've got a CD in there, how about some tunes for the rest of the way?"

"No, Nick. We're not listening to Country." Sara said, making a gagging motion that she thought Nick couldn't see out of the corner of his eye. He smiled at her and made the motion right back, mimicking her to perfection and eliciting an eruption of giggles from the woman next to him.

"It isn't Country, Sara. It's a mix from my sister Jana. And for you information, Country is a classic genre of very talented artists and—"

"Yeah yeah yeah, Cowboy. Whatever you say," she interrupted as she let out that amazing, enchantingly charming grin that always knocked Nick out where he stood and reached over to push play on the CD console.

Suddenly, a loud, thumping boy-band beat came rushing out of Nick's speakers, and Sara couldn't help but laugh loudly, causing Nick to shake his head sheepishly.

"Your sister sent you songs from boy-bands?" She said as she touched Nick on his shoulder, causing him to let out a slow breath and focus on the road before him to keep him from doing something embarrassing, "My God…I know this song. Is this that song from that band? What's the name…?"

"…SoulDecision." Nick answered quietly, knowing the song very well after listening to Jana play it thousands of times when he was at the ranch for vacations when he was a level two.

"Oh, yeah!" Sara said enthusiastically. Nick assumed he was just being ridiculed by her again all in good fun until he heard a low, musical voice rumbling from the other side of the car.

"Kind of faded, but I'm feeling all right. Thinkin' about making my move tonight. I can't pretend that you're only my friend when you're holdin' my body tight," Sara sang in that signature raspy tone Nick always thought was beautiful, "'Cause I like the way you're making your move. I like the way you're making me wait. At the end of the night, I'm gonna make you feel like mine. You'll be coming on home with me."

"Woah, now you can't hate on the song you know **all the words** to, now, can you?" Nick joked, masking the fact that he secretly enjoyed her little performance, partly because he loved her voice and also because the lyrics seemed…well…fitting for his particular situation.

"Hey! I just know the words…it's not that I particularly find it enjoyable or anything," Sara fired back as the shook her head defensively, her wavy hair falling into her face. It, of course, did no use. Nick knew she loved the song.

The next song came on, and this time the country-like strums of the guitar made him want to return the favor. He waited for his moment to break out and belt the song to her, half-heartedly wishing she get the message. The chorus came and he looked at Sara.

"I'll be your crying shoulder. I'll be your love suicide," Nick sang with a slight country twang as he expressively held out his hand to the woman sitting next to him, "and I'll be better when I'm older. I'll be the greatest fan of your life."

Nick looked over at Sara, who stared out the window with a dreamy expression on her face. His face fell; he knew exactly what that look entailed. _She must be thinking about Grissom again_, he thought with defeat. His eyes returned to the road, concentrating on the cleared, two-lane highway furtively.

"Something wrong, Nick?" Sara said inquisitively, her face showing concern as Nick turned to meet her gaze. He sighed and continued to stare at the road. Then, he spotted the crime scene 200 feet further, on the right side of the road

"Nope, I'm fine…look's like we're here!" He said with mock enthusiasm. Sara shrugged her shoulders and rolled down her window as a rather portly police officer approached their car.

"You guys the CSIs we called for?" The tubby officer said. Nick leaned over to Sara's side to answer the obviously tired and impatient man.

"Yeah." Nick said with confidence as he started to feel the vine-like creep of his blushing. He suddenly realized how close he was to Sara, just a few inches behind her left shoulder.

A wonderful scent flooded Nick's senses, and he deduced that it since she didn't wear perfume on the job, it must've been her shampoo. He breathed the scent in deeply, discreetly. She smelled of a field of flowers with a hint of buttermilk. The fragrance reminded him of being out near the creek by the ranch back in his hometown, and he was instantly captured in the millisecond he had to relish the beautiful aroma.

The fragrant vapor was both so completely innocent and so totally erotic that Nick had a hard time keeping his cool. He spaced out on the conversation Sara was having with the officer on the case. When he felt her turn to him he quickly stumbled back to his original seat away from her, and she smiled.

"Ready to go?" She asked as she unfastened her seat belt to dive into the crime scene.

"Yeah," Nick said softly as he smiled sweetly to her. He watched her roll her eyes sarcastically at him before giggling and jumping out of the big SUV. He got out of the car slowly, watching as she walked up to the yellow crime tape and turned to wait for him.

"Come on, Nick. Let's do this so we can get out of here."

Yes, she was stunning. Nick knew that. She was amazing, glorious, witty, honest, hardworking, and caring. Yet, the best adjective he could use for her was, unfortunately, untouchable. He'd fallen hard, but it was clear to him that she was interested in another man, and he was almost sure it was their boss. He wanted her so badly, but there was no way. _But_, he wondered_, it couldn't hurt to dream… could it?_

_No. It couldn't._

_

* * *

_There we go! I would love to hear what all of you think about the direction of this story.

Oh...and the two songs were "Faded" by SoulDecision and "I'll Be" by Edwin McCain


End file.
